


in simple strings

by worry



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Serial: s127 Enlightenment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 05:02:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13182921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worry/pseuds/worry
Summary: “Throw him into the void,” she orders, and he cannot tell if the fright on the Doctor’s face is genuine or simply an act.





	in simple strings

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I first watched Enlightenment I wondered what happened during the scene where they threw Wrack and her crewman off of the ship - and finally I had the inspiration to write my idea of it. Enjoy :)

  
  


_ It pulses in his mind as a feverdream, a wishful hallucination; the Doctor’s soft voice after the Guardian’s, outside for him - not for him but for him, to save Turlough where the Guardian wouldn’t, the Doctor with open arms & the Guardian’s arms wrapped around his neck. He screams. Look at Turlough, so pitiful. Recently he was tied weighted to Earth, to humanity - and now he is screaming for someone to save him, swoop in and carry him away like a story carved into wood, prophecies and hieroglyphs and ancient writing. The prophecy: Turlough will be on Earth and then he will be saved (by the Doctor) (and) (no one else) and then he will end up here, nearly taken by space, afraid of death after welcoming it.  _

 

_ He was going to die. He was going to save himself and save the Doctor and  _ **_save_ ** _ as if there is something worthy or golden inside of him. The Doctor deserves to live much more than he does. _

 

_ He is going to die. He’s going to explode in space, in the same position that he can never shake: cold. He is so cold. He is so, so cold and can never be warmed. The Doctor— _

 

_ The Doctor opens the door. He shuts everything down. He does the only thing that he is capable of doing: being pure, surprising. The Doctor just continues to surprise Turlough. How can something so good exist among so much bad? Instinctively: Turlough wants to stop it. Cut off everything he doesn’t understand with his bad skin, with his bad soul. Upon further thought: he wants to marvel at it, because he is the exact opposite of the Doctor - he is abhorrent, but only out of necessity. You don’t get anywhere with purity, unless you are the Doctor. Good and bad are two gray concepts born from each other, forever holding hands in the moonlight into the sunlight into the coldness of space. They face away from each other but look into each other’s eyes, separate sides of a shimmering coin. _

 

“You have no time left,” Wrack says; doesn’t she  _ know, doesn’t she k n o w the Doctor has time in his fingertips, dusted in his hair, underneath his skin?  _ The Doctor -  _ is  _ time, walking among others in a shell of a body. Time slips at its very essence; it does what it wishes, moving and shaping and dragging those that are victim to it. It can never be held down or stopped or deterred, and the Doctor is every uncontrollable force in the universe harnessed and injected into a body. This means: wholeness. This means: Turlough should keep himself controlled, so the coin continues to spin. He could get too close and demolish everything that he has built by feeling everything forbidden.

 

“Throw him into the void,” she orders, and he cannot tell if the fright on the Doctor’s face is genuine or simply an act.

 

“No, Turlough,” he says, and for a moment Turlough thinks this:  _ the coin has landed on my side, it is my time to act.  _ He could throw the Doctor into space and then the Guardian would accept him, he would be trustworthy, worthy. There are so many malleable things inside of his hands, so many possibilites, outcomes of the situation multiplying.

 

He sighs and studies the Doctor intensely; it is a mix of fear and trust. The fear being the Doctor terrified of his own trust, thinking about those possibilites - he was, indeed, wrong to put his trust in Turlough so now Turlough has to make a  _ choice.  _ He isn’t familiar with the concept of “choice”.

 

_ Kill or save. What would the Doctor want him to do? _

 

He shuts his eyes. He is, at his most, a weapon. His only trait is his own fear, his only use is sharpness. The Doctor is time walking and he is a blade with veins, holding himself back.

 

He grabs Wrack by the shoulders. A smile forms on the Doctor’s face, just faint, and he takes the other -

 

and they push both into the vastness of space, holding on for the explosion. Somehow, this act, this gray control of others’ lives, pushing and ending and firing, does not seem to taint the Doctor’s purity.

 

The Doctor’s breaths turn heavy. Turlough stares at him, open and - and - and - vulnerable, a view that he never exposes.

 

“We just…” Turlough starts, and the Doctor holds up his hand;  _ he doesn’t have to finish his sentence,  _ they just ended two lives and the Doctor is breathing heavily and he is pure, still pure.

 

That could have been Turlough. That - could have been the Doctor, if Turlough had not embraced his uses. 

 

“We must get back immediately,” the Doctor says, and waves him away. The Doctor, of course, is correct. They have to return to Striker’s ship. They have to.

 

But: “Wait,” Turlough says, and despite looking annoyed, the Doctor stops, looks down to him. “Did you think I would do it?”

 

The Doctor inhales deeply. He rests his hand on Turlough’s shoulder. “I always look for the best in others, Turlough,” he says. “I believe that morality is not a black and white structure, that almost everyone can be good.” He laughs softly. “Sometimes it’s simply wishful thinking.”

 

“And?”

 

“And I believed in you,” he finishes. “Did I doubt you? Possibly. But I did believe, and you proved me right. You’re more than you think you are, Turlough, and I hope one day you’ll see that.”

 

Turlough looks down at the Doctor’s hand, feels his touch. He is, for once, unable to speak.

 

The Doctor returns him to the ship in silence, and Turlough can still feel his touch, the ghost of it radiating on his arm. 

 

He cannot kill the Doctor.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me what you think! Kudos + comments very appreciated. ♥


End file.
